Portal 2 interview discusses play testing, cross-platform co-op

Valve programmer Jeep Barnett and the firm’s head of marketing, Doug Lombardi are featured in a new video interview with Games on Net, and not only chat about Jeep’s move from work on Narbacular Drop to Portal 2, but the game’s cross-platform play and how puzzles are included in the game.

As far as cross-platform co-op between Xbox 360 and PC was concerned, Barnett said “maybe we’ll get it next time. We’ll see what they think of the PS3 version.”

Lombardi discussed the implementation of puzzles, and described how ideas are first sketched out and then play tested.

Valve found through play testing that gamers will find various ways to solve puzzles in the game, and because of the different variables Valve tries to make changes to the gameplay as soon as possible. Over 100 or so players went through testing Portal 2 levels before anything was considered final and put into the game.

Another nugget which was dropped in the interview, was that only 30 percent of folks who played Half-Life 2 finished it. Shame on them, etc.

Portal 2 releases on April 18 in the US and April 21 in the EU for Mac PC, PS3 and 360.